


Perihelion

by orphan_account



Series: Apsis [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Consensual Underage Sex, F/M, Female Harry Potter, Grooming, James Potter Lives, Lily Evans Potter Lives, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-17
Updated: 2020-06-18
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:33:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24762400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: On October 31, 1985, Voldemort came to the Potter House. Ten years later, Aster Potter falls in love with the man she's been raised to kill nearly all her life.Perihelion: the point in the orbit of a planet, asteroid, or comet at which it is closest to the sun.
Relationships: Harry Potter/Tom Riddle | Voldemort
Series: Apsis [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1790776
Comments: 23
Kudos: 128





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I have no claim over the Harry Potter Series, nor the characters or locations within the original works. I own nothing more than my ideas and the time put into the creation of this fanfiction. No money is being made off the creation of this fanfiction. I claim no rights otherwise as the author of the fanfiction below. Thank you.
> 
> Content Warnings: War related death, injury, and violence. Underage sexual content and touching. Grooming.

Aster Potter's earliest memories were foggy and faded, more like impressions of events left like wrinkles on a blanket, but there was one she could recall with near perfect precision. She was five in the memory and it was Halloween. She can't recall what she was dressed as, just that she was wearing low heels, a white poofy shimmery dress, and she had pearls strung through her hair. Perhaps she was a princess or a fairy of some sort, though it hardly mattered in the end. That wasn't essential to the memory.

Her parents had sent her to bed after trick or treating without candy for throwing a tantrum when they took her home after only six houses. Asterope had found this incredibly unfair and so she'd thrown herself in bed still wearing her costume and refused to let her parents in to tuck her in. Unfortunately, much later at night, she was regretting that decision because she was scared, hiding under her bed with her plushie fox, Copper, too cold and too afraid to go to sleep on her own.

She was awake to hear the gate click shut, to hear the door open. Asterope was curious at that age. Too curious and clever for her age. She knew that her uncles were not meant to arrive before guy fawkes day, to help them get ready to move, and otherwise no one was supposed to know where they were. She had heard her parents argue in whispers when they thought she couldn't hear about the terrifying dark lord Voldemort, the reason they never stayed in any house beyond a month, and she was afraid that he was outside. They had been in Kent for six weeks, longer than they had ever stayed before, and now she worried they would be moving again. She strained her ears to hear the soft footsteps as they came closer.

Soon they stopped, right outside her door, and Asterope held her breath and squeezed Copper tighter. The door creaked open, then closed. Footsteps. Thump, thump, thump. The light clicked on, too sudden, too bright, and she whimpered before clapping her hands over her mouth. The stranger chuckled.

"Little Aster," he called in a quiet sing-song voice, the same kind of tone her father made during hide and seek, a warm and safe voice that had her relaxing, "come out come out where ever you are?"

No one had ever called her that. Her dad called her Bambi, her mom called her Terri, her uncles favored Prongslet, and if she was really in trouble they called her by her full name, Asterope Chrysanthemum Potter, but no one had ever called her Aster before. 

She giggled under the bed, excited by the game, even with the unfamiliar voice. She liked meeting new people. Asterope adored meeting new people, in fact, because the only people she had much interaction with were her parents, Sirius, Remus, and Peter. Sometimes Mr. Severus would stop by but he never stayed long and he was always rude. Even rarer still, Professor Dumbledore would come, with his long white beard and his endless offers of sherbet lemons, and she was always sent to her room during these moments. And rarest of all, sometimes people would come with unfamiliar faces and they always brought treats and toys, distractions for when the grown ups got to talking about a phoenix. Asterope had always thought this must be one important bird, but since she wasn't even allowed to know that much, Asterope kept her mouth shut. If they knew she was listening they might stop letting new people come over. They always put up quiet spells before she could hear anything important anyways.

"Aster." The man called again, this time she could see his bare feet and long black robes, and she tried to hide another giggle as he walked away from the bed. She wiggled a little to get a better position, and the bell on Cooper's pointed star dotted hat tinkled. She heard an odd creaking noise, and then suddenly he was hanging over the bed grinning a her. "Found you!"

Asterope shrieked a little, delighted and frightened all at once, then clapped her hands over her mouth. It was silent for a moment, both listening for her parents, but then Aster decided they hadn't woken up and she shimmied out from under the bed to better see the stranger. He was her dad's age and he had hair like hers, black as ink, though his was much neater. His skin was paler than hers was, and he was much taller than her, probably taller than daddy. His eyes were red. Red as her birthstone, red as the old school ties her parents and uncles had, and red as the roses mommy kept in an ugly yellow planter in the living room of every house they went to. Red was Aster's favorite color. He was very pretty, Asterope decided, like a prince. Though, perhaps he was a little old to be a prince, so he'd have to be a king like daddy.

"Are you a king?" She asked.

The man chuckled. "Yes, I suppose I am, clever little Aster." He praised her. Aster beamed up at him, already besotted. "I'll tell you a secret though, one you can't tell anyone." He waited for her to nod vigorously before saying, "My name is Tom."

Later, she would know just how important this moment was, but at the time she was just a starstruck child in awe of being trusted. "Hi Tom." She greeted shyly.

He was very pleased when she said his name, his eyes flashed, and his smile was very sharp. "Hello flower." Tom greeted back. "Remember, don't tell anyone. When your parents wake up, you have to call me Sir."

Asterope thought this was a funny nickname, but who was she to tell a king what he could or couldn't be called. "Okay Sir." She nodded and he patted the bed next to him. She sat down.

"Aster, do you know why Voldemort is after you?" Tom asked as he started to undo the pearls from her hair. He was much gentler with her hair than her mom or dad would have been.

Aster blinked in confusion. "He's after me?" She inquired, "I thought he was after mommy and daddy."

"No flower," Tom answered, and she liked that name as much as she liked Aster, "He's after you."

"Why?" Asterope asked.

Tom started to gently brush her wild curls out, and Aster was shocked that it didn't hurt like normal either. Clearly he was using some magic that she'd never heard of on her always wild and tangled hair.

"Many years ago, before the dark lord won the war and became Emperor of the United Magical Kingdoms, a seer gave a prophecy that was overheard by a spy for the dark, who brought the incomplete prophecy to the dark lord." Tom revealed, "It said a child would be born at the end of July who could lead to the dark lord's death. Two children fit the prophecy as he had heard it, and he chose you. He wanted you. But, he was no fool. He would not act until he got his hands on the full prophecy. Do you want to know what it said?"

"Yes please!" Aster gasped, wide eyed and riveted to his every word.

"The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches... born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies... and the Dark Lord will mark them as his equal, but they will have power the Dark Lord knows not... and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives... the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies." Tom recited to her and she listened to it solemnly, confused by the meaning of the important sounding words.

"You see, Aster, the prophecy never said you would kill him, nor did it have any clues as to who you were, but you were chosen anyways. He came to your house on Samhain when you were 15 months old and he was determined to kill you, to be merciful by vanquishing you before you had much chance to live, but then he hesitated. He had never had an equal and he couldn't wait to see what you could be. So he left you but not until after he marked you." He continued.

With those words he stroked her hair from her face to see where the silvery pink lightning of her scar sat just in the center of her forehead, and he pressed a soft kiss along the jagged lines. His lips felt hot against her scar. Her scar felt warm and tingly.

"Voldemort claimed you." Tom said, and he started to braid Aster's hair. "He poured some of himself into you, gifted you some if his power, and in doing so marked you as his chosen equal. No one else can touch you, Aster. Not to hurt you, not to claim you, not for any reason. When you turn fifteen he will come for you, he will claim you, and he will expect you to prove yourself a worthy equal to him, or he will kill you and everyone you love. Do you understand Petal?"

Aster didn't, not really, but she nodded anyways. Afterwards Tom made her some tea and read her a strange story about three brothers cheating death until she fell asleep. In the morning, her parents were pale and frightened, and Tom was no where to be found.

She wouldn't learn the truth of this visit until she was much older.


	2. Chapter One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lily reminisces on the past and Aster turns 15.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Voldemort goes off the deep end and this chapter lives up to that violence warning.
> 
> Trigger warning: Child injury, forced miscarriage/abortion, stabbing, mild torture, Voldemort being a fucked up violently obsessive person, threats of murder and necrophilia, referenced grooming.

Lily Evans-Potter remembered the day Albus Dumbledore came to her home, just two months before Asterope had been born, and told her that Voldemort was determined to go after her daughter because of the prophecy Albus had warned them of only three weeks earlier. She was worried, frightened even, but the solution had been simple. Three days later, Peter became their secret keeper and they were supposed to stay in hiding until Voldemort was defeated.

Except that Peter got captured and tortured into revealing their location. Lily wasn't sure she believed that as readily as her husband and his friends did, Peter hadn't been in bad shape when they found him, a little shaken up maybe, but what did she know about torture really. It didn't matter in the end whether or not he'd betrayed them or bern captured, Peter stayed. What really mattered was that Voldemort broke into their house on Halloween, froze her husband and her with some dark petrification curse and cut her baby girl's face open, leaving Asterope screaming and bloodied in her cradle with a single red aster. Lily still remembered the way he had smiled so cruelly at them.

"Rejoice." Voldemort had said, caressing her cheek mockingly after he'd paralyzed them both, "Only one will die tonight. You can keep this one."

He'd placed a hand on Lily's stomach over her nearly unnoticeable baby bump, sharp nails leaving red trails in their wake, uncaring of the blood and tears he brought, and then he went up the stairs. Five minutes later the screaming started. Voldemort didn't kill Asterope. Instead he carved a lightning into Lily's fifteen month old's forehead with a cursed knife of some sort, marking her as the prophecy dictated.

Voldemort stopped to wipe her daughter's blood across James' cheek in the same mockery of a caress as he had done to Lily when he came down the stairs. "Relax," he'd grinned wildly, and there was her baby's blood splattered and stained on his face and hands, "Darling little Aster lives. I'll even let you keep her, a girl needs her parents after all."

Before he left Voldemort looked over his shoulder, blood red eyes bright, "Raise my pretty little flower well, I can't wait to see her in a few years." He grinned darkly and vanished into the night.

Severus had luckily heard from another death eater that Voldemort was coming for them, so they were only frozen in their living room listening to their baby girl scream her head off for six hours before he came to save them. Lily would never forget that he'd unparalyzed her husband first, not with the way James kissed her once friend full on the mouth in appreciation before he'd run up to the nursery. Lily had never seen a man so confused as Severus was that night, the image was as burned into her mind as the sight of James with her bleeding screaming baby frantically running down the stairs. 

They ran, hidden by the night, hidden by magic both dark and light. Their little group had no feelings for the war itself, not anymore; James, Severus, Sirius, Remus, Peter, and her. So many men ready to protect her and her girls. Four months they ran, four months running from house to house, forest to forest, hidden in civilisation or camping, until Voldemort once again found them. Lily was alone with Asterope, and Voldemort petrified her once more as he blasted in the door. He came up behind her and twisted her hair in his sharp nailed grasp. 

"Foolish girl, hiding my blossom away from me." He hissed angrily, before taking that same cursed dagger he'd used to slice open her daughter's forehead months earlier and and stabbed her in the stomach. The pain of that was nearly enough to make her pass out, but she couldn't. Not while Asterope was in such danger. "How dare you hide my flower, my Aster, from me. I was generous, wasn't I? I let you live. I let you keep my petal, I let you raise her, my equal, and this is how my generosity is paid."

Voldemort stabbed her in the womb once for every week it had taken him to find Asterope, seventeen times, before cancelling the spell that held her still. It didn't matter, the pain of her loss was more paralyzing than anything she'd experienced before. She just collapsed sobbing on the ground, her fingers desperately trying to keep her second child even though she knew it was useless. That knife scarred deeply and it's wounds never fully healed. Asterope's forehead attested to that. Voldemort grabbed her by the hair and hauled Lily back to her knees, twirling his pale wand in his fingers, his face twisted with malicious contemplation.

"Mama?" Asterope stood at the doorway to their kitchen with wide emerald eyes and a trembling lip. She was wearing a pink nightgown, one Lily had told her was too dirty to wear, it was backwards and a little stained. She didn't know why the detail came so vividly.

Voldemort instantly let go of Lily's hair and turned to look at her baby, instantly riveted on her. Lily was frozen in fear, unable to speak, but Voldemort simply walked over to her girl, kneeled in front of Asterope, and laid bloody hands on her cheeks. "Hello my pretty little star flower." He smiled so softly at her nearly two year old, running bloody hands in her inky hair.

"Hi." Asterope said shyly. Voldemort conjured up a red aster flower which he tucked over her ear. Asterope pointed to Lily. "Wha' happen?"

"Your mom and little sister are very hurt, my Aster." He told her gravely. "Your mommy and daddy were rude, they needed to be taught a lesson. I hurt her, but I wouldn't have hurt her if she didn't hide something of mine from me, do you understand? "

"Yes." Asterope said as solemnly as a small child could, tears streaking through the blood left on her cheeks.

"Hush, my petal." Voldemort gathered her daughter into his arms, drying her tears with bloody fingers. "No use crying over things that could have been prevented."

"Will she be okay?" Asterope asked, stumbling over the k so it sounded more like a t.

"Your sister is dead, pretty Aster, I'm sorry you wont get meet her, but mommy will survive. Will you watch your mommy until daddy gets home?" Asterope nodded determinedly, and Voldemort smiled at her. "So brave," he praised, "Go get your mommy some tea, my flower."

Her baby smiled blindingly, wiping away her tears, and skipped to the kitchen. Voldemort turned back to her. "A pity to waste such magical blood," he hissed coldly, "but consider this a warning. If you hide her again, I will not be so lenient. Don't hide my precious petal from me again."

He went into the kitchen, all she heard was a few muffled words being spoken, indistinguishable from each other, time slowly crawling, and then the jingle of a bell. Voldemort stepped over her on his way to the door. He didn't spare her even a second glance. When Asterope came back carefully holding a tray with two tea cups, one purple and the other white, there was a small red fox in her arms wearing a midnight blue velvet sleeping cap with delicate sparkling constellations sewn in silver thread, a silver bell hanging from the tip of the hat. Asterope poured the tea from the white cup slowly over her sliced open belly, an act that was confusing at first, but as she stopped bleeding she realised Voldemort had likely instructed her. Her daughter sat with tear streaked blood stained cheeks, sipping her tea and snuggling the fox, dutifully watching over Lily the full five minutes it took for someone to arrive.

Calliope Amarylis Potter didn't make it.

Despite the warning, despite the threat, after that they never stayed anywhere longer than a month, sometimes not even a week. They became efficient at hiding all of their tracks, and spent their days travelling all over the world without ever actually seeing anything. Every three days an order member or a friend, most often a friend, would come check in on them, to make sure no one had found them yet. Between the Potters and Blacks, there were a lot of houses for them to hide in, twenty three liveable properties in all, not all with livable residences but they made do with what they had. They spent endless effort into keeping Asterope safe and hidden as the wizarding world fell to Voldemort's blind violent rage.

Then, in July, a short three months after Voldemort was crowned emperor of the magical communities of the United Kingdom, Albus requested their help for a favor that would have them stuck in Kent nearly seven weeks. They made there way back to the England slowly, settling down in the old Potter Manor in Kent. They would have left the Potter Manor on November fifth, they would have gone to Ballycastle, but in a tragically poetic way Voldemort once more found them on Halloween.

He didn't leave her girl crying that night. Voldemort played with Asterope, he braided her hair, informed her of the secrets the order fought so hard to keep, made her tea laced with sleeping potion, and tucked her in to bed with a story. Then, once she was asleep, he waited for them. This all she learned later as her little girl talked excitedly about her new friend. Asterope didn't call him Voldemort, she called him sir or the king. It made Lily feel sick.

Before Asterope woke and began babbling about her friend, Voldemort had waited for them to wake up, sitting on their sofa drinking their tea. It was only James' predictable need for a late night snack, and her desperation for chocolate, that led them down the stairs. They never made it to the kitchen. When Lily and James came down, blissfully oblivious, Voldemort was quick to throw crucios at them both at the same time, wielding two wands, one pale as bone the other white as snow. The pain was easily the worst she'd experienced physically, but the loss of her child years earlier, the loss of her ability to bear another, had been much worse pain mentally. This wouldn't break her.

Voldemort calmly released the spell, then stood. "I warned you Lily Potter about crossing me, hiding my Aster from me." Though his voice was calm, he looked unhinged, manic, dangerous. "And yet, four years ago you still ran. You still hid her. You haven't even started training her, informing her of her fate. My flower deserves to have a chance against me when I come to claim her life, don't you agree?"

Voldemort cursed them again before they could answer. It was like fire in her blood, she had blood pouring from her eyes and her ears, and she couldn't breathe through her own blood choking her as it poured from her mouth, but then just before either James or she could pass out he ended the spell. He came to stand directly in front of them his bare feet soaked in, and his long black robes dragging through, the blood they'd only just lost. He tilted their heads up, one in each hand, the gentleness of the touch a contrast to his darkly cold look.

"You care about my petal, do you not?" Voldemort spoke sweetly, his eyes so very cold. Lily and James both were frantic to agree. Voldemort's grip tightened in their hair. "You love her?" Again they nodded desperately.

He chuckled, but hus laugh was as empty as his face. "You are lucky I care about my Aster. You are lucky that she would be devastated by your loss, and I wouldn't wish her to experience such loss, nor would I risk her to a fate with your muggle relatives unlike your precious Dumbledore would, so I will graciously grant you a third chance. You will not run. You will stay in this manor and raise my flower. You will teach her, prepare her to come up against me. She will go to Hogwarts in a few years, I expect her to be the very best student. I'll accept no failure from my equal. Anything you do against her, will be a slight against me, an act against me. You will bring her to me on her fifteenth birthday."

"Your daughter is mine, you understand?" Voldemort spoke sweetly but with an edge of cold mania and Lily wanted to scream, "Mine to kill, mine to protect, mine to own, mine to break if I so desire. I will do whatever I wish to her, and you will allow it. You will prepare her to duel me in ten years time, to impress me. I will test her in her fifth year, and if you fail to raise her properly, or if you take my flower from me one more time, I will make you and your little friend group beg for death. Then, I'll kill all but one of you. Ill maje Aster chose which of you she loves the most, which will survive. I'll make the survivor watch all the others die. Perhaps I'll make you watch something far worse. A follower of mine likes his lovers colder, you see. I'll let them violate every single fucking one of you, and I'll leave the last of you to clean up the mess. You'll never see my petal again, not once if you step out of line."

"Perhaps, I'll make Aster watch everything too, so she knows what fate awaits her should she try to run from me of her own volition." He continued coldly, every word a special kind if torture to the two parents. "Then I'll take her home with me, perhaps I'll chain her up or perhaps I'll lock her in a tower and put her in an enchanted sleep like the princess in a fairytale, but she'll suffer for your actions too, when I force her to chose which one she cares the most about, which one will survive as she watches her family members die one by one in the most violently degrading way you can imagine. I'll keep breaking her until it shatters my star flower. Believe me, I'm not above doing this the hard way, making her hate me, though I'd prefer her to like me, to trust me. I am not above hurting her to teach you a lesson. I trust you two understand me clearly?"

He shoved them back aggressively and left without waiting for a response. It didn't natter. They all knew they wouldn't run again. Lily couldn't afford to let him hurt Asterope.

A few days later, Remus, Sirius, Severus, and James all disappeared and then arrived at the manor three nights later, bloody and haunted. No one told Lily what happened. James only had one thing to say.

"He told you he wouldn't be lenient if you ran again."

Remus could no longer control his wolf, he shifted without the moon, his hair steadily growing more and more silver as he lost control. Sirius and James seemed traumatized, but they were not affected otherwise as far as Lily could tell. Severus didn't come over, he didn't answer owls or floo calls. When the next full moon came and Severus came and went with Remus, Lily understood some of what happened, though still she knew nothing but what she could peice togetger. Though that night hadn't been a full moon, Voldemort, it was said, knew of a dark spell to force a wolf to change without the moon. He must have used the spell to force Remus to shift, Remus must have lost control, and without an animagus form to protect him Severus paid the price.

**~🍁~**

"Mom!" A sweet voice shattered through Lily's morose remembering. "Have you seen my fountain pens? I can't find them anywhere?"

"Check your father's study!" She called up.

Ten years had passed in the blink of an eye, and Asterope was finally fifteen. Her child, her baby, was finally ready, and Lily felt anything but ready. They hadn't seen nor heard from Voldemort since that night ten years ago, aside from birthday and Yule gifts for her daughter and occasional letters containing praise and concealed threats. The most memorable of these gifts was for Asterope's tenth birthday, when he gifted her the same snow white wand he'd held against them that last time they'd seen him, holly and phoenix feather, a sibling wand to the dark lord's own. It was a perfect match for her daughter.

The fountain pens had been gifts too, Asterope hated writing with quills, it left her writing smudged and hard to read, but with the fountain pens her handwriting was nearly flawless. They wouldn't run out of ink either, not for at least fifty years anyways. All of the gifts she had received from the Emperor were useful, all except the fox she still slept with, though she pretended not to; everything from books, to expensive supplies, to the endless black notebooks for Asterope to fill with notes and spells and potions. Voldemort encouraged her curiosity and her ideas, for he was a strict if mostly absent mentor, guiding her from afar while his death eaters watched over her like her own knights. Lily had never grown used to their presence, their threat.

The order came through her house just as often, leaving a tense atmosphere. The war had ended when Voldemort was crowned, but Lily's living room told a different story. Everyone, every death eater, every order member, every single person in the magical communities of Europe, were lying in wait for the war to begin again. It all rested on Asterope's shoulders.

"Thanks mom!" Asterope came up to her and kissed Lily's cheek, before excitedly hurrying away to the kitchen with her box of pens and one of her notebooks.

"Happy Birthday!" She called as her daughter disappeared.

Voldemort would come tonight, during her fifteenth birthday, to inform Asterope of the test he had set up for her. Lily was almost certain this test was the tri-wizard tournament. What better way to prove she was ready to be his equal at last than to force Asterope to compete in a deadly tournament. The sickening thing was, Voldemort had done so well raising Asterope, grooming her from a distance, that her darling girl was excited for the challenge. Excited to meet Voldemort. Lily never wanted to hear her child call Voldemort her destiny again.

Lily stood and walked to the kitchen, where her daughter had abandoned her writing supplies to make party snacks. She was wearing a pale yellow frilly apron, a gift from her best friend Luna, and very carefully cutting pieces of fruit into stars.

"Anything I can help with?" Lily asked.

Asterope smiled and nodded. "Can you start on the dragonfruit?"

"Of course." Lily took off her wedding band and transfigured it into a small star shaped cookie cutter.

Though Astetope could cut hers into perfectly symmetrical rounded stars without any assistance, Lily could not, and her daughter was a perfectionist. Voldemort had raised her to be so, with his constant need to make Asterope strive to do better. Lily had never seen Asterope fail. She must have, Asterope was just a child, but she had never done so where it could be witnessed. She got straight O's in all her classes, she was the youngest seeker in a century, and she was the Slytherin girl's prefect. Voldemort didn't accept failure. Asterope didn't either, for he had molded her in his image. 

Once the strawberries and dragonfruit had been added to the fruit salad, Asterope took the treacle tart from the oven to cool while Lily mixed the fruit. Asterope wasn't having cake for her birthday, but she couldn't resist treacle tart. Lily went over to see her work, not even remotely surprised to see the subtle patterning caramelized on top of the tart. 

"It smells wonderful," Lily said, then she furrowed her brows, "and kind of floral too?"

Asterope turned scarlet. "Oh yeah." She smiled shyly. "Treacle tarts are basically just syrup and breadcrumbs, so instead of syrup I used magic to harvest nectar from Uncle Sev's flower garden, the non-magical garden that is."

Lily blinked. "That's clever." She said sincerely.

Lily fondly smiled when Asterope turned impossibly redder, as she did when she was embarrassed or being praised. She oddly never seemed so flustered when Voldemort sent her praise in letters, and Lily often wondered if she would blush just as brightly if he ever deemed to praise her in person.

"I have to go get ready." Asterope stuttered, then she hastily put away her apron and left.

James came in shortly after with a chuckle. "What did you do to get her that red?"

Lily laughed. "Complimented her."

James grinned widely. "That would do it." Then he kissed her cheek and started 

For a moment they stood in content silence, just enjoying each others company, then James tried to steal one of the fruit stars and Lily shot a stinging hex at him. James yelped.

"How do I look?" Asterope asked, twirling in the kitchen doorway.

Lily gasped as she looked at her, taken aback by how beautiful Asterope looked, with her inky black hair piled up in an elaborate braided bun like Voldemort had done to her hair that dreadful night ten years ago. She was wearing dark makeup, black and silver on her eyes, burgundy on her lips, and her knee length sheer-sleeved dress was black velvet and shimmering, the nicest but still semi-casual thing her daughter owned. Asterope clearly wanted to impress someone.

No, not someone. _Him_.

James forced his face into a supportive smile beside her, and Lily tried to copy him. She wanted to scream. Asterope's face fell, she was clever enough to see how fake their smiles were. She looked hurt. Before Lily could speak, a shadow fell over her daughter.

"You look positively stunning, my Aster." An unwelcome voice cut in, and Asterope spun around with wide eyes and a happy gasp.

There, standing just behind her daughter, just as terrifying as ever, stood the Emperor of the United Magical Kingdoms. Voldemort himself.


End file.
